This invention relates to the management of honey bee colonies for high honey yields, and more particularly to a method and system for two-queen operation of honey bee colonies with the eventual replacement of the resident queen by a more desirable queen.
Honey bee colonies are housed in hives which usually contain a plurality of hive chambers stacked vertically. Each hive chamber is essentially a rectangular box, without top or bottom, filled with removable frames within which the colony raises brood and stores pollen and honey. The removable frames provide a means of inspection and manipulation of the colony, and of removal of honey in excess to the colony's needs. The lower most chambers, usually two, are used for raising brood and for storing honey and pollen for the colony's own use, and are known as "brood chambers." The hive chambers above the brood chambers are for the storage of honey which is in excess to the colony's needs and are known as "supers." A queen excluder, which usually is essentially a series of wires mounted parallel at a spacing which will allow the passage of worker bees but prevent the passage of queens which are larger, is usually employed between the upper most brood chamber and the lower most super to prevent brood rearing in the supers. A cover and a bottom board which provides an entrance and exit opening at the bottom of the hive assembly complete the basic hive structure.
Each honey bee colony has a distinctive hive odor by which the colony recognizes its own members and intruder bees. The colony readily admits its own members but intruder bees are usually prevented from entering.
Honey bee colonies during an acitve period normally contain a single queen, worker bees, drones, and brood which is primarily worker bee brood. Two queens in the same colony almost never occur in a typical hive because if they contact each other they will contest for survival until one is destroyed. Depending on the season of the year, queen condition, brood space, colony condition, and other factors, queen brood may be present in preparation for swarming or for the replacement of a failing queen which is known as "supercedure." Modern management methods are designed to prevent natural swarming because the colony is left in a weakened condition after swarming and the swarm may be lost. Often a young, more desirable queen is introduced into an established colony to replace the resident queen before supercedure has started to insure the pedigree and control the temperment of the colony. Requeening as currently practiced requires the removal of the resident queen and gradual introduction of the replacement queen. A gradual introduction of the replacement queen is required for the queen odor and the colony odor to become unitized so that she will be accepted by the colony. This introduction period usually requires about 4 days, which is an interruption in brood rearing since the resident queen must be removed from the colony, and if done prior to a honey flow will result in several thousand fewer worker bees when they are needed most for the honey harvest. For this reason, requeening is often delayed until after the honey flow.
Two-queen operation of a honey bee colony provides a larger worker bee force for the honey flow than is provided by a single queen. The colony is reverted back to single queen operation at the appropriate time after the worker bee force is built up. Two-queen operation as currently practiced is described in the literature: ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture, by A. I. Root, copyright 1975, pages 555, 556, and 557; The Hive And The Honey Bee, Roy A. Grout, Dedant and Sons, copyright 1963, Fourth Printing 1973, pages 271, 272, and 273; and Agricultural Handbook Number 335, U.S. Department of Agriculture, June 1971, pages 27 and 28. As specifically pointed out by the A. I. Root reference and may be implied by the other references, two-queen operation of honey bee colonies as currently practiced may not be practical for commercial operations because of the large amount of labor required to effectively manage the colonies.
The methods for two-queen operation of honey bee colonies described in the references typically involve the division of the colony population and brood into two parts with each division in separate hive chambers for purposes of introduction of the second queen. After the introduction has been accomplished, the brood chambers containing the introduced queen are placed above the brood chambers containing the resident queen and the other division of the colony population and brood. The two divisions are separated by newspapers which the bees tear away and intermingle or by a board with a screened opening to separate the bees but allow the mixing of the characteristic odors of the two divisions so that they will become indistinguishable from each other. If a board with a screened opening is used, it is removed after a certain time has elapsed. The vertical stacking of the brood chambers requires that the upper brood chambers and any supers emplaced be removed for inspection and manipulation of the lower brood chambers. This is a difficult task since the heavy hive chambers are stacked to a height above the effective lifting height of people.